"One day I'll unite everyone to wipe it out!"
Perturabo's low muttering left Corvus Corax somewhat bewildered. What exactly had just happened?
"Brother — what was that just now?"
"You nearly got played. Ignore whatever voice you heard in your head. It seems it's time you learned some of the Imperium's secrets."
Perturabo gave this young, idealistic brother a briefing on the nature of the Warp. Corax was deeply shaken.
"So — if you ever encounter something that feels wrong, don't hesitate. Come find me immediately. You cannot afford to have problems. Understood?"
Perturabo impressed this on his brother earnestly — the last thing he needed was for Corax to one day face genuine difficulty, or lose his sons in large numbers, and retreat into isolation.
That would be a catastrophic loss. It had to be prevented.
"Understood."
"Good. Your sons will fill you in on what's been happening in the Legion. If you're short on ships or equipment, say so — I'll have it allocated."
"Thank you, elder brother."
Perturabo gave a moderately satisfied nod.
"I'll leave you to catch up with your sons. If you have questions about governance — if my methods don't suit you — there's another brother you can go to. Perhaps his approach will be more useful to you."
"Who?"
"Roboute Guilliman, Lord of the Ultramarines. You can send a request to Macragge at any time. He'll be glad to help."
"Understood."
"You lost. Hand over the technology."
Looking at the Emperor's insufferably raised chin, Perturabo suppressed the urge to slap him and flung a drive module across the table.
"Your boys still need a little work, I have to say. How can trainees who came out of a practice range compare to those forged in actual warfare?"
"That one called Delta, though — interesting. Beta-plus psyker rating, solid leadership ability. You actually found a gem there."
Malcador pocketed the drive while the Emperor commented with maximum smugness from the side.
"He was the top graduate from Olympia's First Academy! He was originally supposed to become one of my sons."
"He's doing fine as he is. Give it a few years and the position of Supreme Grand Master will be his — another win for you."
"What win? I handed over forty-four alpha-plus psykers and I came out ahead? The Grey Knights aren't under my command."
"Ah, don't be like that — we're all part of the Imperium. No need for 'yours' and 'mine.'"
For reasons that were unclear — possibly the complete absence of external pressure — the Emperor had been living remarkably well lately. Setting aside the inability to leave the Golden Throne, there wasn't much to complain about.
For an intensely introverted eternal researcher, a few hundred years was actually not that long. The Emperor found his current existence quite agreeable.
It would have been nicer if Horus visited more often. Regrettably, the more frequent visitor was that earnest fool Dorn — who had a habit of demonstrating his collection of restraint implements right in front of him.
If the Emperor himself hadn't been entirely free of such inclinations, and Dorn himself had no apparent vices, the Emperor would genuinely have been examining whether something had gone wrong in his gene-template — or whether he had accidentally added something extra when creating Dorn.
Then there was that idiot Iyanden witch. But as he recalled, she didn't have those tendencies either — so how had two beings spending so much time together produced this result without her showing her true colours?
Whatever the case, no amount of verbal persuasion had convinced Dorn to abandon his self-mortification habits. The Phalanx's interior rooms now housed a considerable collection of implements.
Sigismund had originally been so offended by the culture that he complained to Dorn about it — and promptly found himself handed two Gloriana-class ships and a star-fortress and dispatched on campaign.
"What brings you back to Terra this time?"
Malcador knew Perturabo's visits to Terra always came with an agenda.
"Has anything gone missing here recently?"
"What do you mean?"
"My Iron Fortress was breached. By the time I received the alert and got back, the intruder had already vanished — and had stolen a bolt pistol I designed in the early days."
"Someone managed to steal from you?"
The Emperor was genuinely surprised.
"A momentary lapse. The access permissions at that section were originally configured for my sister — but somehow the thief found a gap in them. I was at Corax's location at the time. I wasn't paying attention."
"I suspect the thief didn't stop at my collection. If it was bold enough to target my fortress, Terra has a reasonable probability of being on its list too. Keep a close eye on things."
Perturabo already had a suspect in mind — and was nearly certain.
"Some thief doesn't know you're the Warmaster of the Imperium — and still dares raid your headquarters? That takes extraordinary ability."
"Old Mac — anyone in our circle who could do that?"
Malcador was at a loss. The people in their circle had many capabilities, and plenty could disappear when they needed to — but actually stealing from Perturabo's fortress and walking away clean was something else entirely.
"No."
"Then this is genuinely strange. A thief with this kind of reach?"
"To steal from my fortress and escape — calling it a thief almost undersells them. That's a Grandmaster of Theft at minimum."
"You came to Terra just to tell us this?"
Malcador felt this wasn't quite enough reason for Perturabo to make the trip in person.
"No — there's something significant I need to discuss with you. More precisely, I'm here to extract something from you again."
Another payout?!
"You just lost a bet and you're already asking us for things again?"
The Emperor was exasperated.
"This has nothing to do with the bet. What I'm asking for this time — if I can achieve mass production of it, then even if humanity faces a catastrophic crisis in the future, it may be able to self-correct without requiring our direct intervention."
"Oh? You have an idea this significant? What technology — say it. As long as it isn't Abominable Intelligence, we can discuss anything."
"I want the Perpetual conversion process."
The Emperor and Malcador both froze solid.
Deep beneath the Imperial Palace, a Tech-Priest sauntered out with complete confidence — ignoring the patrolling Custodians and Imperial Fists entirely — carrying an armful of data files.
The Webway's construction remained classified — but the Imperial Fists guarding Terra had known about it for some time. The Primarchs had been brought here directly by Perturabo back then, which had stripped away some of the Webway's mystique.
"Priest Tarasin."
"Lord Commander Weidhar — patrolling again today, I see."
Tarasin looked at the towering Imperial Fist before him and felt an odd sense of appreciation for the workings of fate. That helmet he had borrowed from him last time had turned out to be a fairly significant piece of memorabilia.
In truth, Tarasin hadn't particularly valued such things originally. The Imperial Fists' habits were well-known enough that at most Tarasin would take something Dorn used personally — documented, preserved, filed away. But then it had noticed something rather distinctive about this particular Lord Commander.
Did one really need to wear a helmet of that particular design — by human aesthetic standards, fairly embarrassing — while administering electrical stimulation to oneself?
The current levels involved didn't seem very high, actually. For an Astartes, it probably registered as barely anything — possibly just enough stimulation to sharpen mental alertness.
For the purpose of steeling the will through controlled discomfort?
But as Tarasin looked at the upright, principled Lord Commander who looked very much like a younger Dorn in the face, certain images began forming in its data circuits that it would rather not have processed.
"Moving more data again?"
"Indeed — the Sage-Archmagos has been generating more work than ever lately. I expect this section will be complete soon, and then hopefully my teacher will put forward my nomination for Mars — and from there, eligibility to study at Olympia."
"I wish you an early realisation of your ambitions."
"And I wish you an early completion of your very own war-fortress."
The Lord Commander gave a nod and resumed his patrol.
Tarasin made a show of greeting a few Custodians, then quietly slipped back into the interior of the Imperial Palace.
The finest things always required manual acquisition.
"What do you want this technology for? Absolutely not — ask for something else. Something else and I'll agree immediately."
The Emperor shook his head rapidly.
"What's the objection? You've always considered Perpetuals to be highly advanced. And the conversion of Perpetuals isn't something you've never done — the Dragon of Mars is being watched by your people as we speak."
"Do you have any idea what it actually takes to convert someone into a Perpetual? The conditions are extraordinarily stringent. And even when I successfully converted someone back then, I found it almost incomprehensible — there are far too many variables in that process. Even if you handed me the exact same parameters and told me to do it again, I couldn't guarantee success."
"It's not simple biological gene engineering. Perpetual conversion has to be done at the soul level. It requires deep binding with the Warp. And then the physical body has to be rebuilt around that.
"There's no defined procedure. It fundamentally depends on the Warp to work."
"Dalia is a very special case. In reality — it isn't just me. There is a certain Cultic organisation that can also convert Perpetuals. But the ones they produce through later-stage conversion are inferior in capability to natural Perpetuals, and even their resurrection limit is finite."
"Why would you suddenly want this technology? Are you afraid of death? Or is there someone you don't want to die?"
"A bit of both. Give me the technology first — I'll research it myself."
"You tell us your purpose first."
The Emperor and Malcador both refused.
"My sister is part of it. And my brothers — and certain of my sons. I want to convert them all to Perpetuals. That way, even if we all eventually encounter some catastrophic situation, they could—"
"Absolutely not!"
The Emperor stood up and struck the table.
"You and your brothers are already immortal! Except for Vulkan — who is the same as me — your lifespans are effectively unlimited. There's nothing for you to fix there."
"And Astartes — that's completely out of the question. There may be individual cases in the future of Astartes voluntarily becoming Perpetuals — but I will not permit you to mass-produce immortal Space Marines. Do not even think about it. This is non-negotiable!"
The Emperor's refusal was absolute. At present, Astartes and Primarchs being involved in politics was something he could tolerate — because ultimately the Primarchs would depart, and Astartes, though significantly extended in lifespan through the Primarch enhancements, would still die of old age eventually.
Mortals would eventually return to power. And if in that future, humans could produce Custodians through purely physical and technological means — without touching the Warp — so much the better.
Because in the Emperor's view, only the Custodians were what perfect humanity could truly become. Astartes were just a stopgap — a handful of engineered improvements held together by a touch of Warp influence.
"You used to consider Perpetuals to be highly advanced humans. Now you can't accept Astartes becoming Perpetuals? They're human too. And they've already lost the ability to reproduce. Why are you so afraid? How many Space Marines can there even be?"
"Even if every Legion pushed to maximum recruitment simultaneously, the total across all of them would be what — tens of millions at most? How large is the galaxy? What could a number like that actually do?"
Perturabo genuinely couldn't understand the Emperor's dread of the Astartes.
"Without auxilia and mortal support, Astartes cannot accomplish anything of significance — surely you can see that?"
"The Terran Administratum alone has tens of billions of officials. Add up the populations across every other world — who could even calculate that total?
"Without my logic engines for support, and without the mortal officials to actually govern worlds, what can a Legion-scale number of Space Marines do?"
"Astartes Legions during the Crusade have always been the ones cracking the hardest problems. But when it comes to worlds reclaimed — can we honestly compare to the expedition fleets?"
"Of all the humans on how many worlds — across how many centuries — have ever even seen an Astartes? Most of them live and die in the lower tiers without glimpsing one in their lives."
"If humanity truly recovers to the level of the Dark Age of Technology, why would a population of this scale of Astartes even matter?"
"The Men of Iron and the automata are superior to them in every measurable way. And you're still this paranoid?"
Perturabo had planted himself in opposition to the Emperor — he had zero tolerance for both of these old men trying to drag history backwards.
"But these would be Perpetuals! Perpetuals! Do you have any idea what tens of millions of immortal Astartes would mean?"
"I wasn't actually planning to convert all Astartes. At most — my own commanders and Warsmiths. Just them. Is that still unacceptable?"
"The answer is still no. I'm telling you right now — abandon this. And the Perpetual conversion process isn't something you could complete fully even if you tried. You'd be better off dropping it."
"Then give me the technology! If you already think I can't succeed, what exactly are you afraid of?"
"That you might actually succeed — that's what I'm afraid of!"
The Emperor had genuinely become afraid of this son whose mind was always generating extraordinary and dangerous ideas and who had not a shred of reverence for the technologies he was handling.
He was far more arrogant than Magnus had ever been. And with the power to back it up, he operated without boundaries. The Emperor had a persistent, unpleasant premonition — a deep fear that Perturabo was going to get badly burned by this.
Arrogance and hubris had begun to corrode this son's inner world — exactly as they had once corroded the Emperor himself.
The Emperor recognised this feeling with absolute clarity.
Every time he had believed his own strength sufficient to solve any problem — whenever he had started to drift — something terrible had followed.
"My son. Stop. Your thinking has already become dangerous. You were not like this before."
"I'm contributing to humanity. If I can convert my brothers and certain of my sons into Perpetuals, then even when we face desperate situations in the future, there will at least be some of them who can step forward and hold things together."
Perturabo thought of the worst possible outcomes he could remember from his memories of another life — no matter what, prevention first.
"Perturabo — your father is right. If this were a matter of some personal interest, we could accept it. But what you're proposing is too large. We cannot allow it."
"The consequences are too serious. You cannot permanently guarantee that your brothers and sons will remain loyal to the Imperium."
"Even Horus — in truth, your father doesn't fully trust even him."
"Your planning and reasoning are sometimes more rational than Roboute's. But reality rarely develops according to plan, Perturabo."
"We acknowledge — you may genuinely have the capability to salvage certain catastrophes. But by the time those catastrophes arrive, humanity would already have suffered enormous losses."
Perturabo had no further interest in listening.
Fine. If they won't give it, so be it. He'd have Alpharius locate the Cultic organisation's members — and then he'd have them all brought in and fed into the daemon factory's processing lines.
In there, all their riddles and their nihilism would gradually dissolve. The overseer staff were not weak mortals — and they would have no patience for whatever theatrical internal experiences these cryptic types entertained in their own skulls.
Perturabo didn't believe for a moment that the Perpetual conversion process was truly beyond replication. At worst, he'd capture some Cultic members or other Perpetuals and study them directly. Something would come of it eventually.
"If you won't help, that's fine. I'll handle it myself."
The Emperor and Malcador exchanged a glance. Both could see the other's helplessness.
"Have you heard enough? Did you think you were hiding well?"
Perturabo directed his irritation toward a Tech-Priest who had been quietly pressing themselves against the door, listening.
Tarasin stepped inside with complete composure. No Custodians guarded this room — the Imperial Chancellor had no need of them, and the nature of this conversation made a small audience inadvisable. Even so, the recording had been running the entire time.
All three looked at the Tech-Priest with convergent, scrutinising attention. Even Tarasin's characteristic fearlessness lowered itself a degree. This visit was primarily about acquiring certain objects — and the eavesdropping was a bonus. Even losing this avatar was acceptable. The audio was already secured.
"Was it you who stole my things?"
The Emperor and Malcador looked at the assorted small objects tucked inside Tarasin's frame. The corners of their mouths twitched slightly. This thief had remarkably distinctive taste.
Facing Perturabo's direct accusation, Tarasin immediately objected.
"'Stolen' is hardly the right word, my lord. That would be better described as the preservation of an original work by a gene-Primarch — ensuring it is not lost to future generations."
"You're very smooth with words. Can that mouth of yours talk meat back onto a Necron's mechanical skeleton frame?"
Tarasin's eyes sharpened instantaneously.
"My lord, you flatter me. I'm quite confused by the implication."
It was attempting to play dumb and slide past the moment — but these three were not people to be fooled by such a manoeuvre.
"Keep performing and I'll personally go to Solemnace and drag your main body out. I'd very much like to see how many items you've collected over the years, and how many interesting things are sitting in that museum of yours."
Tarasin tensed immediately. It knew these people were entirely capable of following through.
"Your Majesty. Your Highness. You can't kill me — I'm still useful."
"There's another avatar of mine working beneath the Webway right now. It's reached a critical phase of the routing analysis. The Webway construction cannot afford to lose me at this stage."
"The Sage-Archmagos of Solemnace?"
The Emperor said it plainly.
Everyone — including Tarasin — paused.
"You... know?"
Tarasin was confident it had never exposed a single identifying detail about that identity. How had the Emperor identified it?
"Your disguise is excellent. Necron technology and knowledge far exceeds ours in many respects — and your technical ability when the Webway construction began was clearly far beyond the other Sage-Archmagi. You couldn't fool me."
"But there is one thing you couldn't disguise. When I assembled the list of Sage-Archmagi, your name wasn't on it — however you managed to insert it, I still don't know."
"And there is one quality in which you fall dramatically short of the others."
"What?"
Tarasin was genuinely puzzled this time.
"You lack the one thing that every one of those Sage-Archmagi carries: the quality of being alive. That restless creativity, the spark of inspiration — when they hit a wall, they pace, they pull at their own hair, they burn with urgency. You were too calm. Calm like something that has already died."
"The Sage-Archmagi I selected would never show such stillness — because those brilliant, driven researchers never rest. The Webway gives them no peace. You were among them, and you did not belong."
The Emperor's voice was even. But Tarasin was reviewing its own performance — 'the quality of being alive.' That was genuinely difficult to fake.
"Then why didn't you expose me?"
"I hadn't considered that you might be Necron — and your technical capability exceeded theirs. When they ran out of ideas, you were always there with the next approach. So I permitted your presence."
"And now? What happens now?"
The Emperor was quiet. He disliked xenos. But Tarasin's value was substantial.
"He doesn't need to answer. I'll give you my word — as long as you don't cross our lines, you may move freely through the Imperium. Frankly, there's nowhere you couldn't go regardless of what we said. Just exercise some judgment."
Perturabo spoke on behalf of an Emperor who was struggling to find words.
"Oh?"
Tarasin's interest was piqued. Did this mean it could go wherever it wished?
"So if I were to occasionally want to... preserve, or collect certain historically significant artefacts—"
"Don't go too far. Everything else — as you like."
"Your Majesty, my lord Chancellor, my lord Warmaster — I have actually been wanting to say this for quite some time. The Webway — I can continue contributing! The final forty percent of the routing paths — I can see exactly where the problems lie at a glance!"
"With me here, the remaining sections can certainly be completed faster!"
Tarasin's sudden enthusiastic declaration of loyalty was somewhat jarring — but all three were confident they could handle whatever small schemes this creature might run. They paid it no particular mind.
And so—
Over the following period, a series of small incidents began occurring on Terra and the Moon.
Mundane items belonging to various individuals would vanish without explanation — nothing of great monetary value, but almost always of personal significance.
Valdor was furious.
The helmet that had been kept in his quarters had disappeared. It had belonged to the Thunder Warrior Ushotan — whom Valdor had personally killed, but that hadn't diminished the man's extraordinary service record. The helmet was a small token of Valdor's private guilt over what had been done to them.
And now it was gone.
Which thief had the audacity to steal from him?
Absolutely outrageous.
Connecting this to the recent run of his fellow Custodians and the Imperial Fists all seeming slightly off, Valdor finally understood — you couldn't lose something like this and stay composed about it.
A thief capable of embarrassing the Custodians was not something one encountered often.
This required quiet investigation, naturally. Making a public spectacle of it would be the end of the Custodians' reputation.
Valdor quietly organised several Custodians to conduct a private inquiry — to absolutely no effect. The thefts on Terra continued daily.
When a female Custodian reported that the inner garments she wore during off-duty hours had been taken, Valdor knew this was beyond his capacity to resolve.
He went to find the Emperor and Malcador — who were playing chess to pass the time — and was startled to discover a Tech-Priest bouncing around between them, pointing at the board and offering commentary, while both men seemed completely unbothered.
What was this about? Since when was there a Tech-Priest who could operate with this much freedom in here? And with connections this solid?
"Valdor — is something the matter?"
"My liege — there have been some small incidents on Terra and the Moon recently. I suspect an enemy may have infiltrated our perimeter."
"Thefts?"
"You know about this?"
Valdor was taken aback.
The Emperor looked at Tarasin, who was in the middle of explaining to Malcador the precise sequence of moves that would achieve an absolute checkmate.
"Didn't I tell you not to go too far? The Captain-General of the Custodians has brought complaints directly to me."
"Ah, they're just little odds and ends. Back in the day I wouldn't have even glanced at them — it's just that I saw something I liked and the old habit kicked in. Force of instinct."
"Return what you took."
Give back something that was already in his collection? Was he still Tarasin?
"How about this — I contribute some special materials instead? Genuinely useful for Webway construction."
"Valdor — you may go. Tell them the intruder has fled. Instruct everyone to keep a closer watch on their personal belongings going forward."
"This..."
Valdor looked at the Tech-Priest. Who exactly was this creature? A deviant, and yet the Emperor tolerated it. Truly strange.
While Terra was gripped by the ongoing thefts and the quietly spreading unease, back on Olympia — Perturabo's experiments achieved another breakthrough.
He looked at the unusual gene-seeds in his hands and allowed himself to feel that he had genuinely created something remarkable.
Through the Primarch's Flesh-Change techniques, Perturabo had nearly completely replicated the genetic sequences from the Primarchs — and had then encoded additional fragments into those sequences.
The Emperor and the brothers' full clones hadn't been going smoothly. So Perturabo had taken a step back — if full replicas were the problem, then producing "half-bloods" ought to be considerably less difficult.
In practice it wasn't particularly hard — the genes did express themselves differently during the splicing process. These gene-seeds were each built around a dominant genetic sequence, with Perturabo's encoded fragments of himself and his brothers woven in throughout. They carried certain characteristics of him and his brothers — but were always distinctly their own thing.
A cryptic and unsettling but somewhat verbose riddler.
A stubborn, sharp-tongued, psychically capable engineer of obstinate disposition.
A group of somewhat melancholic literary savages.
And so a group of large, powerfully built figures in uniform black power armour appeared before Perturabo.
Their shoulder guards and chest plates bore no markings whatsoever. No Legion — looking at them — could identify their affiliation.
Perturabo had custom-designed their armour after the Black Shield pattern — the Great Crusade's assignments for each Legion were too broadly defined. Specialisation was needed.
This was Perturabo's dedicated force — built for the extermination of xenos and the handling of certain special situations.
The Deathwatch would be their new name. Killing xenos their exclusive purpose. Unusual and difficult cases — a staple of their schedule.
A Legion should not be the Imperium's general-purpose stabilisation force. Wearing too many hats was not something a military force ought to do — not even the Space Wolves.
The Deathwatch was what Perturabo had created to take over every secondary function the Legion had been handling on the side — freeing the Legion to concentrate entirely on the Great Crusade.
Looking at this group of individuals who seemed ready, right in front of their creator, to cause problems — Perturabo suspected their methods might be a little extreme.
"You're all presumably aware of your role. I'll provide you with sufficient fleet assets. From this point forward, you will operate throughout Imperial space and beyond."
"You will have no Chapter identity. No recruitment world. No home world and no fortress-monastery. You will answer to my orders alone — sweep out xenos, execute your missions."
Perturabo finished speaking. He looked at the group below him — no visible reaction — and found himself unsure what else to add.
"Father — are you certain they can handle this responsibility?"
Berossus, back for rest and recuperation, stood beside Perturabo and watched the massive fleet departing from the star-port. He had a persistent bad feeling.
"They're a bit headstrong, yes — a few personality issues here and there. But however you look at it, they came out of our Olympian programme. There won't be any significant disasters."
But Berossus privately felt this group of good brothers was going to produce some truly legendary situations.
What kind of Space Marines called down orbital bombardment because they spotted a xenos child?